Social Security Resource Center

Does my spouse’s income affect my Social Security retirement benefit?

Your retirement benefit? No. Each spouse can claim their own retirement benefit based solely on their individual earnings history. You can both collect your full amounts at the same time.

However, your spouse’s earnings could affect the overall amount you get from Social Security, if you receive spousal benefits. These are Social Security payments you can collect on the basis of your husband’s or wife’s earnings record.

The maximum spousal benefit is 50 percent of your mate’s primary insurance amount — the retirement benefit to which he or she is entitled at full retirement age, based on his or her earnings history. (To get 50 percent, the person claiming spousal benefits must have reached full retirement age, which is currently 66.)

Under Social Security’s “deemed filing” rule, most married people are required to file simultaneously for retirement and spousal benefits — when you claim one, you are deemed to be claiming the other. Social Security will pay you the bigger of the two amounts (never both combined). If the spousal benefit is larger than your retirement benefit, you will receive the amount of the spousal benefit.

Say you and your mate both claimed Social Security at full retirement age. Based on your respective earnings records, your retirement benefit is $1,200 a month and your spouse’s is $2,000. Your spousal benefit would be $1,000 — half of your spouse’s benefit — so Social Security will, in effect, ignore it and pay your higher retirement benefit of $1,200.

But suppose your retirement benefit is only $900 a month. In this case, you’ll get $1,000 from Social Security, the equivalent of the spousal benefit. (Technically, Social Security considers itself to be paying the $900 retirement benefit on your work record and topping it up with $100 on your spouse’s record — but practically speaking, you’re getting the spousal benefit.)

Spousal benefits are not affected by whether your husband or wife claimed Social Security before or after full retirement age. Spousal benefits will always be based on your mate’s primary insurance amount and your own age when you claim them.

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